


Fix Her

by Papapaldi



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, aaaangstt mostly let's be honest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2019-11-21 13:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18142577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papapaldi/pseuds/Papapaldi
Summary: Five was Vanya's only friend at the academy, once he left, everything changed.A fic about Vanya and Five's friendship growing up, and how that friendship kept them hopeful in all the years they spent apart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> check out my tumblr @papapaldi if you want to scream about tua

_Five hours after_

Any moment now she’d hear him rustling around downstairs. Maybe he would come through the bedroom window and surprise her, the same way they would sneak out at night. He wouldn’t just go. He wouldn’t leave her all alone here. Five would come back. He’d run off at dinner and hadn’t been back to the house since. Vanya couldn’t sleep not knowing where he was. After their father had stopped calling after him, he’d simply gone back to his meal, and so did the rest of them, as if nothing had happened. Vanya had gotten to her feet, ready to chase off after him. Her father had put a stop to that. He would return when he was ready to face the consequences, he’d said. Her siblings hadn’t even seemed bothered about Five storming off, he liked to make a scene, and would quite often hide himself away in a secluded corner of the house and evade the rest of them for hours. Not Vanya. She knew all of his secret hiding places, she knew because they were here hiding places too. It was going to be alright, she told herself. He would probably be here in her room when she woke up, telling her that she was silly for worrying so much. She held onto that hope as she lay awake, because she knew that she couldn’t face a day in this house without him.

...

_1168 days before_

“Go away Vanya,” Allison sneered, “you cant play with us, father said so.” The children were playing again, at least that’s what their father called it when they practised their training drills on one another. Sometimes half would pretend to be robbers, the others the heroes, but it was all just a guise for their true purpose, as father said, to fight off evil.

Vanya had wandered into the middle of their little set up, hoping to integrate herself into the make believe scenario as effortlessly and as welcomely as the others seemed to. She’d shuffled awkwardly into the centre of the room waiting to be noticed, testing the waters, seeing how long it would take for them to send her away. Vanya ignored Allison’s jab and continued shuffling her way towards Luther and Diego, locked in a fist fight that was a little too rough to be considered training. Allison scoffed and went back to Five, who was teleporting around her as she threw punches and kicks. He was laughing, which only egged her on. Five always loved to tease the others, always smirking as he danced around the rest. He’s the only one that ever paid any attention to her, even if it was just in the form of sitting in silence in the library, reading, or the occasional kind remark. The others, even Ben and Klaus, mostly ignored her because they followed the lead of one, two, and three - and those three followed father's example to the book. They all admired him, but those three were especially devout. Their father ignored Vanya, told everyone she wasn’t really part of the academy, that she had failed to be strong like the rest of them, to be special. Of course they believed him, he was all they’d ever had. Five was the only one who seemed to question that notion.

Vanya practised their fighting moves in secret, the uppercuts and jabs and disarming techniques. It was difficult, learning such things on her own, but she made do. Sometimes she even confined herself that she belonged here.

Luther pushed Diego backwards, who toppled into Vanya as she observed the scene. “What the hell Vanya!” He cried, “you’re just getting in the way, get out of here.” She shrugged an apology and moved on, maybe if she stuck around long enough they’d have to include her. She didn’t have anything better to do.

“Ahhhh,” Klaus cried theatrically, rolling around on the ground with his hand draped over his forehead. “Please save me number one, save me from these terrible fiends!” Klaus was playing hostage, a role that everyone else tended to avoid. Klaus, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy the drama. Ben was sat next to him, giggling, pretending to hold him at gunpoint. Vanya suppressed a smile.

“Vanya!” It was Allison again, she got sort of scary when she was mad. “You’re getting in the way, I have to go free the hostage, you’re messing up our training.”

“Hey guys,” Klaus piped up, breaking his long string of wails, “maybe Vanya can be hostage, she doesn’t really have to do anything.” Allison simply rolled her eyes.

“You shut your mouth, citizen,” Ben grumbled, putting on a deep, gravelly voice.

Klaus grinned and got back to wailing, “ohhhh nooo please don’t kill me!”

“Vanya can’t be hostage,” Luther said, and as leader his word was law. “She’s too quiet and boring, hostages aren’t like that in the real world.”

“Pretty sure hostages aren’t like that in the real world either,” Diego pointed at Klaus, who was rolling around on the floor while Ben laughed and struggled to hold him still. Vanya smiled at Diego to express her gratitude, but he turned away pointedly. Sometimes she suspected he only stuck up for her because it was the opposite of what Luther said.

“We don’t even need a hostage,” Allison added, “we just need to practise fighting, Klaus just likes messing around.”

“That’s right,” Luther muttered, he always agreed with Allison. “We should really just concentrate on honing our skills, father says that’s the only thing that matters.”

“Yeah, well,” Diego smirked, “your skills could use some honing.” He ducked out of the way instinctively, anticipating a punch. Luther managed to hold himself back (for once) and simply grimaced as if the slight had caused him physical pain.

“Can we get back to the game now?” Ben asked, “and can I be the hero next time? Klaus is being weird,” even as he said it Klaus pulled a face and Ben collapses into yet another fit of laughter.

Vanya giggled, but stopped short when she caught sight of Allison’s icy glare. “Vanya.” She said, coldly, “go.” Vanya looked down at her shoes, unmoving.

“Hurry up,” Luther chided, “or we’ll get father, you know you’re not allowed to play with us.” Even Diego didn’t disagree with that sentiment.

Vanya finally mustered up the courage to speak. “I can fight,” she murmured, “I’ve been practising.” Diego badly suppressed a chuckle. “What?” She cried, indignant, “I have been, I bet I could play the hero next time.”

All six of them - no, not Five - shared a knowing glance. They burst out laughing. “Come on, Vanya, it’s ok,” Klaus chuckled, “you don’t have to pretend like you’re one of us.”

“You don’t have powers,” Ben said, a little shy, looking up at Luther and Allison for some sort of praise. “You’re not even really a part of the academy.”

“You were never meant to be here,” Luther said, and Allison, right to his side.

“Father doesn’t want you.” It’s the same phrases, over and over, passed around the circle. No matter how many times she hears them, they hurt just the same.

“Shut up, Allison,” Five snarked, speaking up for the first time. Allison scowled at him, and Luther stepped in front of her protectively, putting himself between her and five. Five rolled his eyes. “Calm down there big boy,” he smirked, “Alison, you should really keep your dog on a leash.” Luther lurched forwards to attack, but Five was gone in a flash of blue light before his fist was even raised. Klaus was laughing hysterically, spluttering the phrase ‘big boy.’

“Shut your mouth, Five,” Luther grumbled, making his voice sound deeper than it really was.

“Why don’t you shut your mouth for once, and stop being so mean to Vanya. It’s not like dad cares about the games we play, they’re just games.”

This only made Luther angrier. “They’re not just games, we’re training as a team. Vanya isn’t part of the team.”

“You really do live in make-believe world, one, not everything’s life or death.”

“You know what? Fine, she can be the hostage. Once. But don’t let dad see or we’ll all be in trouble.”

Five gave a snide smile. “Vanya wants to be the hero, she said so herself.”

Klaus chuckled, “yeah, maybe it’s time to step down, big boy.” Ben was laughing as well, but not at Luther, at the absurdity of such a notion. The notion of letting Vanya lead. They were all laughing at her again.

“I – It’s okay, really,” Vanya stammered, “it was silly, I’ll just…” she turned on the spot, unsure of what to do with herself. “I’ll just go.”

“Vanya, wait!” Five called, but she was already scurrying up the stairs, embarrassed.

She heard the conversation continue a while from the upstairs landing. “Why do you like Vanya so much anyway, Five?” Klaus asked.

“Yeah,” Diego added, “she’s so weird and boring.”

“She’s more interesting than any of you,” Five said. No one had ever called her interesting before. The thought brought a smile to her lips. “All you care about is fighting.”

“What else is there,” Luther replied, smugly, “that’s what we were made for, that’s what our powers are for. Vanya wasn’t made for anything.”

“You, it seems, were made to be a pain in my ass,” Five sniggered. Luther looked aghast, even Diego was taken aback. Klaus roared with laughter.

“If you’re not going to train then just go,” Allison snapped, stepping closer to Five, threateningly. “Go, or I’ll make you.”

Five’s expression darkened. He stepped back, shaking his head. “Fine,” he resorted, “there’s no need.” In another flash, and a burst of warbling energy, he was gone. Allison’s eyes darted up to the landing where Vanya was lurking. She ducked out of the way hurriedly and shut herself in her room. Again.


	2. Chapter 2

  _7 hours after_

There was nothing else for it, she had to do something. She wondered if Five was lost somewhere, if he was trying to find his way back. The house got dark at night, what if he couldn’t find his way? He hadn’t touched his dinner that evening, hadn’t eaten since noon that day. It was past midnight. He would be starving. She thought about trying to find him at the old donut place that they often frequented together – but she doubted she could escape from the academy without his help. She couldn’t teleport, after all, in fact, she couldn’t do anything. Gingerly, she rose from her bed and placed her bare feet on the old floorboards – they creaked and groaned in the night with a clarity unachievable among the chaos and voices of her siblings during the day. They would all be sound asleep, training began at five-o’clock, running laps around the courtyard. Not her. Father would let her sleep in as long as she wanted, only because he didn’t care if she was awake or asleep anyhow. As long as she was out of the way, her sleep schedule didn’t matter.

She pushed the door open – just a crack at first. Finding no obstructions, she continued out into the hall. She crept past her sibling’s bedroom doors, one by one. All of their rooms were larger than her’s, all of them equipped with all manner of objects and trinkets and decorative items. Luther’s records, Diego’s dart boards, Allison’s posters, Klaus’ drawings, Five’s textbooks, Ben’s novels – all of them had something that made them happy in the few precious hours that their father allowed them to whittle away in solitude. Vanya had nothing but bare walls and a sparse vanity – even the bedsheets were dull. Sometimes she felt like that room – hollowed out and boring beyond belief. All she had was her violin, and even that had been her Father’s, locked in a case and kept out of sight.

All of them were sleeping soundly – even Klaus, who had been sleeping more and more soundly of late. When they were younger, she’d had to pull her pillow over her ears to muffle the sounds that strayed through their shared wall. His whimpers and whispers, sometimes his screams. It was times like that when Vanya was almost glad she didn’t have a power. Almost.

She pattered out of the corridor and into the main hall. At night, the place was an expansive cathedral. With the chandelier extinguished, the ceiling lay beyond a cloud of dark mist that marked the edge of what the eye could see. The moonlight through the long stained-glass windows cast the space in a chirascuric dichotomy of harsh light and shadow. The light glazed the oiled canvas of the family portrait. In the dark, one couldn’t even notice that Vanya was missing. During the day, this room was the centre of the house, almost cozy – as cozy as life at the academy could get. The reds and golds and warm chirping voices – and their father’s, sharp as a knife that cut it them all, leaving behind an inexplicable cold. He inspired a certain fearful admiration in his children. One and all would do anything to please him, even Vanya. Even though it was scary, this place at night, it felt more like Vanya’s home in the silence and abandon.

She headed to the kitchen across the way, careful to be quiet in her approach as she spied her mother sitting up on the first landing, eyes glowing blue. She pulled a loaf of bread from the tin and started making Five’s favourite snack – a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. Soon after he’d introduced the combination to her, it had become her favourite snack as well, but Vanya wasn’t hungry. She felt sick just thinking of Five out there all alone, even though she knew he could handle himself. Maybe that was what worried her most of all, that he could take care of himself just fine, and he’d simply decided to make his escape without her. She didn’t think he would leave her… or hoped that he wouldn’t. Even now, she was beginning to have doubts. Perhaps he’d finally seen in her what all the other’s seemed to see, a boring girl that only brought boredom along with her. It had taken him a while, if that was the case.

She was worrying herself again. Hurriedly, she stuffed a hand into her pyjama pocket and pulled out a zip-lock bag where she kept her emergency capsules. Five was the only one who seemed to be able to calm her down when she was like this. She didn’t know what she would do without them. She feared the day that she’d be stuck without any medication and she’d feel that strange pull of vertigo twisting in her gut, the drowning, pressing feeling that threatened to drag her under. It made her fingers twitch and her eyes sting, like she was wide awake and burning away all at the same time.

She was holding the capsule in her quivering hand, pressing it to her lips, when the kitchen light flicked on. She nearly jumped out of her skin, and sent the tablet clattering down onto the kitchen tiles.

“Number Seven!” She gasped, a cold shiver running through her. Her breath caught in her throat, jittering. Of course he found her, she was so clumsy, so stupid. “What do you think you’re doing up at this hour?”

Her lip trembled, and she couldn’t stop her voice from stammering along, near a whisper. “I – I”m sorry father, I just –“

“Speak up, girl, stop your mumbling,” so curt, so cold. Ever since she’d known him, always towering above them all, a crisp suit, a stare off into the distance, never in the eyes, barking orders like a sergeant to his troops.

She struggled out a response. “I was making something, for Five, sir – I thought that, when he came back, he might be hungry. He missed supper.” She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes, but she could feel the way his were looking at her. Bearing down, piercing, mouth drawn tight into a scowl. He didn’t answer, so she ventured forth. “It’s just, I know you said that time travel was dangerous, so what if he’s lost and trying to get back home?” Staring, staring, so she kept her eyes on those chequered tiles, letting her hair fall lank over her eyes. “What if we put the lights on, just for tonight, so he can find his way home. It gets cold out there at night.” Before she knew it she was pleading, an act her father had little respect or regard for. He was hard on them, he had to be, but this wasn’t one of his tests. If Five was really in danger, he would help, he had to.

He only sighed. “Your pity is misplaced, Number Seven,” as if even deigning to speak to her, to indulge her childish whims, was a cruel waste of his time. “Number Five knew the risks, and yet he disobeyed me. He will face the consequences, wherever he is in time. If the boy is as useless as I fear, then I doubt he will ever find his way back to us.” How could he say that? It had only been a few hours, he was just lost. He would come back. “He was an impulsive creature, Number Seven, self-important,” he spat, “arrogant, a mere shadow of what he could have become, if he had just listened.” He would come back. "A disobedient thing like that is of no asset to the academy, I do not mourn him, and so should you cast away any weak, grovelling affections you held for your brother.” Shut up, shut up, shut up. “I trust that you and your siblings will learn from his mistake.”

“Shut up.” She muttered, before she could stop herself. Tears stung her eyes, her mouth stretched into that same scowl that so often adorned her father’s face. The one that held no mercy, that was bitter and old and powerful enough to send his children into a frenzied attention.

It was a long and terrifying moment before he spoke. “I beg you pardon, Number Seven,” though he knew exactly what she’d said. He was daring her to say it again.

“That’s not my name!” She cried, staring up at him. “How could you say those things about Five! He’s the best of all of them, he used to admire you too, but you just wanted to use him like you’re using all of them!” She couldn’t stop, everything she’d even felt was coming up like bile in her throat, burning acidic. She lowered her voice, thinking about him, her only friend. “He was the only one smart enough to see it,” Sir Reginald didn’t even react, that same stern face, expressionless. It was infuriating. “He’s the only one that’s even been nice to me, treated me like I belong here even when I know I don’t, I’m not an idiot!” She was running out of breath. “You can’t just give up on him, he’s out there, I know it, he’s coming back.”

Another pause. He cleared his throat, still staring on past her, just another disappointment in a long line, just another stupid child he’d failed to reel in. “Are you quite finished, Number Seven. You’d do best to let go of these petty attachments, if you have any aspirations to become strong.” He brought his hands up into a crisp clap – twice together – a sound that tore through the still night air and raged through her ears. “Now, to bed. I’ll not hear another word of it, Number Seven.”

She’d couldn’t stand it anymore. “That’s not my name!” she screamed. She had one for a reason, she was a person, she was more than what her father thought of her – Five had shown her that. That was the very reason that he clung to his number with such pride, not – as their father suspected – out of some fierce loyalty to him and his best efforts to desensitise them all from what made them human beings – but out of spite. If his father was to number them, to take away everything they were, then the best he could do was cling to that label, make it his own, and form himself around the very thing that was meant to seperate him from everything. Vanya wasn’t so brave, so vainglorious, she had precious little to remind her of who she was – and her name was one of them.

Her father furrowed his brows deeper still, a level of disapproval and disgust that was difficult to bring forth. “Number Seven!” he barked, leaning forwards a little, and bringing his hands together in yet another resounding clap. The sound made her jump. “Go, now!”

She couldn’t move. The brisk sound cut through all the turmoil that had been racing through her mind. Her worries for Five, her anger at her father, her resentment towards her siblings, all of it fell away and was replaced by the humming of the night. The rustling of trees outside, the muffled sounds of car horns blaring as is they were sounding in this very room, the chandelier swaying in the light breeze, crystals clinking and clattering over the sound of her pounding heart. The light flickered, and she felt a draft shoot through the kitchen, parting her hair from her eyes.

Her father must have seen something in them because he froze on the spot – and was that fear on her father’s face? He swallowed, steadying his breathing. Clasping his eyes shut, as if the very word brought a bitter taste to his mouth. “Vanya.” He’d never called any of them by their names before. Perhaps he was so fed up with her that he’d say anything to get her out of the way. Typical. She felt wide awake, brimming with burning energy. He crouched down and picked up the capsule from the floor by her feet, dusting it off lightly. “You don’t seem to be feeling well, have you taken your medicine?”

She cast her mind back, and of course, she hadn’t. With all the commotion at dinner she’d forgotten to take it with her meal, she’d been so worried about Five. Earlier that day, at breakfast, she’d been up in the attic with him, hiding away. Not wanting to be found out, she’d skipped her morning dose as well. She’d been so worried, so angry, so scared, no wonder she was getting herself so worked up. No wonder the world sounded as if it were about to drown her out. She took a deep, rattling breath, and took the capsule from her father’s hand. He backed away, watching her closely.

It was a while before either of them spoke. “Sir, is it okay if I finish making a sandwich for Five, just in case?” Her voice was meek, unsure. She was so sure that he would yell, but instead, he simply turned and walked away, the sound of his dress shoes echoing through the empty house. She took the opportunity to finish, even though she knew he’d think she was weak for doing it. She didn’t much care what he thought anymore. She placed the marshmallows – cut in halves, evenly spaced in a circle, just the way he liked it – onto a generous swath of peanut butter, and finally completed the sandwich. She placed it just beyond the threshold in the marble entrance hall, the great oaken doors, emblazoned with the umbrella insignia, firmly shut against the night. She stopped for a moment and listened, hoping to hear him walk up the front steps. He would thank her for the sandwich, she might even start crying, and he wouldn’t think she was weak or stupid for it, he’d just reassure her of the one fact it had taken her so long to believe was true – that he cared about her. She decided to sit by the door and wait. That way, she would be the first to greet him when he came home.


	3. Chapter 3

_1167 days before_

Vanya was in her room that night practising the combat moves she’d seen her siblings running through earlier that day. She didn’t have a mirror, so instead she watched her reflection in the dark window that looked out at the streets. She watched herself, a dim orange glow in the glass, not half as intimidating as her brothers and sister seemed when they did the same thing. It was a difficult thing to do on your own, and it took a lot of imagination not to feel like an idiot while you punched mid-air, grunting and gritting your teeth. Sometimes she could pretend she was fighting alongside her siblings, that she was strong as Luther, sharp as Diego, quick as Five, or deadly as Ben. Maybe someday they’d love her as much as everyone loved Allison, or laugh at her jokes like they did for Klaus.

A face materialised next to her reflection in the widow pane. She jumped back, hastily stuffing her hands into her blazer pockets, a twinge of embarrassment running through her. Five smiled, he was standing outside on the street, looking in through the window. He rapped lightly on the glass and mouthed ‘can I come in?’

Vanya nodded hurriedly, looking down at her shoes. There was a flash of blue light as the air in front of the window was pushed and warped. Five appeared along with it in a clout of electric air, fizzing with energy. “Sorry if I scared you,” he said, scuffing his foot along the floorboards, restless. “I saw you in here and thought you might like some company.” He met her eyes, “your fighting looks good, I can tell you’ve been practising.”

Vanya flashed him a sheepish grin. “It’s silly, I know, but you guys always look like you’re having so much fun.”

“Yeah well, it gets old pretty fast, especially when Luther and Diego can’t stop showing off.”

“How did you get out?” She asked, wondering how Five could possibly have gotten past the myriad of locks and latches that barred every exit from the academy. Their father ran a tight ship. “Right,” she caught herself, shaking her head, “your power.”

“That’s right, as hard as the old man tries, he can’t keep me in here,” he said, whimsically, though his expression quickly darkened, “even if the rest of you aren’t so lucky.”

“Well it must be nice,” she sighed, “walking around out there without all the crowds, without having to walk in a line two by two with those domino masks on.”

“That’s one thing, at least we get to go out on missions, dad hardly ever lets you out.”

He was right, even when their father took them all on outings to the city, she was ushered out of the car by his side, never part of the procession. That was, if she was let out at all. “I guess, there’s no reason to,” she shrugged.

Five snorted, folding his arms. “And that’s what makes him terrible.”

“Five,” she hissed, “don’t say that!”

He smirked, smug but sad at the same time. “Sorry.” Of course, Vanya knew he was right. Deep down, even Luther knew, but he would be the last to admit it to himself.

“Thanks for standing up for me today,” she said, quietly. Always so quiet.

“It’s nothing,” he shrugged, grinning,“and who knows, maybe someday you’ll be able do it yourself.”

She gave another shy smile, skeptical. “I don’t know about that, they’re probably right to push me away. I’m no fun.”

“Don’t say stuff like that,” he sighed, “just because the others say it doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“I’m sorry.” She was looking down at the floor again, her bangs hanging down over her eyes. Five walked towards her and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, meeting his eyes. It was a difficult task most of the time, but his eyes weren’t disapproving, annoyed, disgusted. Not like everyone else’s.

“Don’t be sorry, you don’t need to be sorry just for existing.” The thought made her smile, simple though it was. It was never something she’d thought too hard about, just existing, without shame.

There was silence between them for a moment, Five ever-restless, bouncing on the balls of his feet and wringing his hands. The boy was always fizzling with energy, darting in and out of the space around them, weaving in-between the world. He was the first to break the stillness. “Do you want to come out with me?” He ventured, keenly. “I know a place I think you’ll love.”

Vanya was surprised, though she could barely disguise her delight. “You want me to sneak out?” She whispered excitedly. Her high was brought down a notch when reality dawned on her. “What if dad catches us? I really don’t think we should.” And just like that, she let go of the notion. Nothing scared her more than her father’s disapproving eyes, that furrowed brow clinging to that pretentious monocle. He saw right through her.

“It’s okay,” Five muttered, defeated, “don’t worry about it.”

“No, no, I want to,” she cried, hating the way he was frowning and looking down at the floor – a look that she knew well because she herself wore it most all the time. “That’s a great idea, but how am I going to get out? It’s not easy for me like it is for you.”

“I can take you with me, I’ve been practising, I know it’ll work.” He smirked, his mouth a broad, thin line stretching from ear to ear. Five always looked as if he was in on a joke that was lost on the rest of the world.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” he grinned, offering a hand to her. “Come on, let’s go.” She took his hand only after a moment of careful hesitation - the whole situation seemed strange to her. Why would someone want to bring her along on a night of rule-breaking escapades. She was Vanya, she’d learned to stay quiet because no one wanted to hear what she had to say, she stayed shut up in her room and pushed out of the way, never on missions or in the portraits up on the wall. Never mattering. She was no fun.

She reached out to him. “Don’t let go,” he warned. As soon as she clasped her hand in his, he turned his eyes up, peaking mischievous through his dark fringe. He flashed her a winning smile, and she felt the blood pounding in her ears as she was swallowed up into the air. She shut her eyes against the pressing sensation, the blinding brightness that surrounded them both for a split second as the world bit down. She felt her ears pop, her bones compressed. Her eyes were still pressed tightly shut when the two of them materialised outside the window, and she felt the cold night air on her face, the breeze whipping at her hair.

She opened her eyes to Five’s worries expression. “Vanya, you okay?”

She took a deep breath. She could use one of her tablets about know, father always said she should take them when she started feeling anxious or over-excited. “Yeah,” she breathed, “I’m fine it’s just,” she put a hand to her forehead, where the beginnings of a headache had began to throb, “I feel weird.”

He chuckled, “Yeah i’d imagine it’s a little strange the first time.” That was an understatement. Was this what it felt like to have a power? She felt like she was going to throw up. “It’s okay, we can just walk from here, it’s not far.”

“Okay,” she said, simply. Why was it that she could never think of something clever or funny to say? Five was good at that. “Where is it that we’re going?”

He held out his hand to her again and started leading her down the sidewalk. “There’s a donut place nearby that’s open all night. They have coffee too.”

“Donuts?” She asked. Their father didn’t allow anything like that in the house. Sugar and caffeine were weakness, he’d say, that would pollute their bodies and minds and distract from the mission at hand. Strangely enough, he always kept the bar stocked up. She’d never had a donut, only the cupcakes that they all got on their birthday, and batches of cookies that mom made when their father was too busy to notice, which was most of the time.

“Yeah, and they’re fantastic,” he grinned. “Come on, it’s this way.”

It was eerie, to walk through the streets in near silence, just the two of them. They passed the occasional stranger, some of whom stopped to consider the ten-year-olds in school uniform wandering the streets alone at night - but none were concerned enough the comment. There were stranger things out there.

For Vanya, it was the best night of her life. She kept her eyes wide open against the dark, stinging as the mottled lights of street lamps and headlights merged. Her heart fluttered in her chest, a buzz that came with breaking the rules that kept her shut out and locked away. Tonight was going to be fantastic.

It took about a half hour to walk all the way to Griddy’s Donuts – a modest, more-than-a-little-grimy diner that was unremarkable among all the other modest, more-than-a-little-grimy diners that littered the city. Vanya could tell that Five was getting restless – she expected that he would using teleport most of the way, taking down a few blocks at a time – but he was patient, and he pointed out his favourite buildings and shopfronts along the way. The neon sign of the donut shop was missing a good half of it’s letters and the jarring yellow and red paint was cracked and peeling at the edges. Five would come to this place many years later and be surprised by the general dilapidation of the establishment compared to the place he remembered but, truth was, everything seemed a little brighter as a child – especially to a child that was never allowed out of the house to see an array of more well-to-so eateries. Coming upon those flashing lights, a-buzz with electricity, Vanya was just as awe-struck as Five had hoped she’d be, and he grinned with pride as he ushered her into the front door.

“This place is amazing,” she breathed, “it’s just like something off of the TV.” The television was yet another seldom acquired commodity in the lives of the Hargreeves children – while their father had a respect for the furthering of science and technology, he spat at such trivial applications as prime-time TV and Saturday morning cartoons. What he didn’t know, shut up in his office all day, couldn’t hurt him. “Do you come here all the time, Five?”

“Not all the time, just a couple – sneaking money out of the office is hard work,” he winked.  
Vanya giggled, “you should be careful, what if he catches you?”

“Trust me, he won’t.” He seemed sure, and so she believed him. “Come on,” he beckoned, waltzing forwards with confidence. Vanya trailed behind, cautious of the waitress standing behind the bar. Five must have noticed her worrying because he muttered “never mind her, she doesn’t care that we’re kids, I think she just wants to get out of her when her shift is up.” Now that he’d told her this, that fact was self-evident. The waitress was a young woman with scraggly dark hair and one of the most uninviting expressions she’d ever seen. The little pink dress and matching hat struck a comical contrast with her indifferent demeanour. As the two of the approached the bar, she pulled out a small notebook and blew a strand of hair from her heavily-lidded eyes.

“Two jelly donuts, please,” Five announced, grinning. He held out a crumpled handful of paper notes that he pulled out of his blazer.

The waitress rolled her eyes and took it, “coming right up,” she mumbled.

The siblings sat on neighbouring red barstools, giddy with excitement. “Hey Vanya,” Five whispered, leaning over to her, “check this out.” He spun around on the stool, the plastic top creaking as it did, “they spin!”

Vanya broke out into a fit of giggling and did the same. The motion pushed the hair from her eyes and out into an arc. She kept her knees tucked tight and spun faster. There was a flash of blue light and Vanya halted her stool, holding her spinning head. Five had rematerialised behind the bar. He was leaning forward onto the counter on his elbow, eyebrow raised. “And what can I get for you this fine evening, Madame?”

Vanya laughed louder this time, so did he. The two of them were cut off as the waitress returned and grunted, “what are you doing, kid?” Five smiled widely at Vanya and teleported back to the stool beside her. The waitress only seemed shocked for a second, then simply rubber her eyes and continued her slog towards the counter. People would excuse the strangest of things, especially when they were tired.

“There you go,” she placed two ceramic plates onto the bar surface, each of them sporting soft, icing-sugar glazed donuts with sweet jam oozing out of the centre. Vanya licked her lips.

“Now Vanya,” Five declared, raising the donut to his mouth, “you’ve gotta be careful to do this right the first time, there’s only one way to eat a jelly-filled donut.”

She smirked, “and which way would that be?” He turned his chin up, a look of pride on his face. She started a drumroll going on the bar, building up until – Five bit halfway into the donut in one go, sending jelly-insides spurting outwards, covering his mouth and cheeks. She started laughing again, watching the jelly dribble down onto his pristine collar. It took him a while to swallow, but he was grinning all the way. “Poor mom,” Vanya cried, “how’s she going to get that off!”

He chuckled. “Alright, Nummmberrrr Seven,” he let off a drumroll and announced her like a ringmaster. “You’re up.”  
“Oh, I can do better than that!” She cried, raising her own donut to her face. Part of her wanted to savour every small bite, but this was much more fun. She bit down in the centre and felt the jam burst out onto her cheeks, felt strings of it in her hair. Normally, she’d be mortified. Five cheered for her, whooping and pumping his fist. The donut was delicious, of course, and Five watched her enjoy it with a sense of accomplishment on his face while he finished his own. She did the same, now that the theatrics were over.

“These are actually really good,” she said, once she’d cleaned her plate, “I wonder if mom could make them for us at home.”

“We could ask, but there’s something special about coming out here to get time, then we don’t have to share them with any of the others.” It might have sounded mean at first, but Vanya couldn’t agree more. She’d love to have a secret, something that was just for her and Five – freedom and hope all wrapped up in glazed bun. Five pulled another crumpled note out of his pocket and placed it on the counter. The waitress eyed it suspiciously for a moment before snatching it up. “Come on, we should head back to the house.”

They were louder on the journey back, both of them brimming with energy and riding a sweet sugar high. They danced around on the pavers, jumped over gutters, running hand in hand – both of them felt almost like regular kids.

Vanya felt herself already missing the night when they approached her bedroom window from the alley that ran along the side of the house. Even the night was quieter now, as it turned to early morning. A tingle of deep blue stained the black of the sky, threatening day and eating up stars. They stood out in the cold for a moment, cheeks flushed and bodies shivering.

“We should sneak out every night!” Vanya exclaimed.

“Wow Vanya,” he chuckled, “I didn’t think that I’d have to be the responsible one, we need sleep too.”

“Oh alright,” she sighed jokingly.

“How about once a week, maybe twice.” She nodded enthusiastically. He paused for a moment, still restlessly twitching his fingers and rolling his heels. “You know, when I came in here I wasn’t sure what to expect. I remember when we all used to play together as little kids but I thought that maybe you wouldn’t like doing stupid stuff like running around in the streets or making a mess of jelly donuts.”

She smiled, a little melancholy creeping back. “I thought maybe I wouldn’t either. Five,” she asked, weighing down her options on his answer, “do you think that maybe – maybe I’m not so boring, like the others say?”

“Of course you’re not, they just don’t give you a chance to join in.” He took her hand again, and she felt that energy surging as the blue lights swirled. “You’re just as good as them – better, actually. You’re smart, and brave, and your music is beautiful.” That’s right, he used to sit by her as she played in the library, reading with a smile on his face. “Vanya,” he looked into her eyes as the space around them swallowed them up, “you’re extraordinary.”


	4. Chapter 4

_7 hours after (5989)_

At first, he’d thought that his powers just needed to recharge, that if he could just calm himself down, he would be able to concentrate hard enough to go backwards through time to when he left off. He got tired from spacial jumping all the time - too many in quick succession set the mind reeling, ears ringing, body wracked and quivering over aching muscles. He didn’t feel like that now. If jumping through time really was such a step up from what he was used to, maybe those three, quick, restless bursts had drained him completely. He tried by the hour, on the hour as best as he could tell. Every time, he felt the pull begin, twisted his grip under the fabric of reality and grasped for it as it slipped away from him again, and again. The energy was there, it still existed within him, but no matter how hard he concentrated he couldn’t bring it forth. It was if here was some invisible force holding him back, like the whole world had been drained of that blue light that threaded in between every moment. It was desolate, in more ways than one. Though the buildings burned and the bodies charred, there was something greater missing, it had been hollowed out and scraped away, leaving nothing. In short, his powers didn’t work here. Even the simplest spatial jumps were impossible for him now. He was powerless - and perhaps worst of all - he was alone.

He kept on with the idea that this was some elaborate lesson from his father to show him the consequences of disobedience. It wouldn’t be the cruelest thing he’d ever done. It was a delusion, but it kept him wondering for those first hours, first days.

If this really was the future, then getting back wouldn’t be the end of it. He’d have sixteen years to change the course of time, if such things really were set in flux. Their father had always told them that they were destined to save the world, but five had always assumed that the notion was just an incentive to keep them loyal and invested in their training, willing to throw everything unique about themselves away in the name of the world and their duty to it. The fact that he may have been right, perhaps that the reason they’d failed was that five wasn’t with them, it cast all his earlier actions like those of a spoilt, stupid child. He couldn’t bare it.

It had been sixteen years for the rest of the world since he disappeared, going by the newspaper he found. It couldn’t have been much longer than that - the bodies that hadn’t been burnt were still fresh and yet to rot, and the fires were still raging like they’d only recently been lit. The thought that he’d arrived only moments later than whatever cataclysmic it had been had torn through the population - it was almost absurdly lucky, if the situation at hand could be called such.

Even though the Vanya of the present was likely dead, in his mind Five imagined her back at the academy, thirteen years old, waiting for him to come home. He had to get back to her. None of the others understood her, nor did they understand him - they needed each other. He couldn’t just leave her alone in that place. He had to keep trying.

_3 days after (6001)_

He found them, and the sight of every one of them lying there brought a unique strain of grief and uncanny misery that cut itself into his heart like a tally mark. He kept preparing himself for how it would feel to see her lying there - Vanya - all grown up and lifeless beneath the rubble. She wasn’t with the others, but that was no surprise, she was never included by the rest of them, even when the world was ending, it seemed. She could be anywhere. She could be any one of the blackened, unrecognisable husks that littered the streets, or buried completely in some unreachable place, or perhaps she was lying dead in another city, another country even. She’d always wanted to escape and live far away from the academy, only thing was, they were meant to have escaped together.

He remembered the time they’d spent pent up in the attic or the library, running through the streets at night or sitting at the diner - he’d assured her that he’d escape to the future, somewhere he’d so naively assumed would be better than the times in which he’d been raised. He’d conjured up images of towering skyscrapers and cosmos-conquering spaceships - thousands of robots just like mom, a world that had progressed to heal the suffering that existed in the early 21st century. Here he was, sixteen years on in the ruins. He’d gotten his wish.

He saw her face in a smashed shop window, a discount price tag slapped across her cheek - Vanya. He ran over to the ruins of the bookshop, reaching for the cover instinctively, pushing his hands through the jagged shards of glass that pulled his skin ragged. She was there on the back as well, he could recognise those dark, sullen eyes, the nervous smile. She’d gotten rid of her bangs - something that had been an intrinsic part of her identity since as long as Five could remember. Growing it out must have been somewhat therapeutic - cutting away the pain of the past, finally escaping her father’s machinations - but alone. Everything would be there - in that book - all the secret worries she’d confided in him when they were young - and all the secrets she had to keep locked away after he wasn’t there to listen. His heart skipped a beat when he skimmed the table of contents and came upon a chapter titled - ‘the disappearance of Number Five.” It was there, in print, as if it was set in stone. Perhaps it was.

_Out of everyone at the academy - Number Five was the only one that I would call a friend. Sure, some of them were more tolerant of me than the others - maybe even exchanged a laugh or a kind word - but by the time we were nine, Five and I were inseparable - that was, until, he disappeared. We’d often fantasised about running away together, somewhere far away where our father couldn’t find us. Although Sir Reginald took a particular liking to Five’s insatiable curiosity to pursue knowledge and power, he could not abide his more impulsive, self-righteous tendencies. In short, he couldn’t keep Five under control, couldn’t reel in his need to grow and test his limits beyond our fathers ideal pace. Five realised, far earlier than the rest of them, that our father wasn’t concerned with our true potential as people, but with how he could use our power to meet his own ends. One day, I guess he just couldn’t take it. I tried to dissuade him, but not hard enough. He was out the door before I could say a word - and he never came back. To this day I wonder if he really got lost in time, or if he simply ran away without me - the way we always planned. I kept up hope longer than you might expect - I didn’t have much else to be hopeful for - but over the years that hope dwindled away to nothing. Sometimes I still think about him - whether he’s dead or lost or living the dream. I hope it’s the latter - despite my sorrow at the thought of him leaving me behind. There was already so much tragedy in our young lives, it would be a small mercy to learn that he had escaped all that - but I fear that I, and the rest of the world, will die not knowing. For me, back at the academy, I was alone again - and Five’s disappearance was only the first in a line of tragedies, that set the fabric of the umbrella academy unravelling._

The passage brought tears to his eyes. Even after all the time they spent together, Vanya had still been unable to shake the idea that Five would grow tired of her, find her boring, ordinary, and leave her alone again. He wished he could tell her the truth.

There was more, in the book, more horrible revelations. Ben, dead, at seventeen. The book didn’t go into detail - it didn’t need to - just the idea of it happening was too much to bear. Of all of them – it was Ben, Five’s self-confessed second-favourite of the bunch – that had to die so young. He was smart – smarter than the others, and the two of them would often read together or listen to Vanya play. Ben was kind, but he was quiet too, and he liked to put on a brave face in front of the favourite three. He and Klaus, however, got along best of all. Both of them had a power that did them far more harm than good, something the others didn’t understand, and the raw, chaotic energy of Klaus was complimented by Ben’s more intelligent and reserved demeanour. He had been a voice of reason, to tell Klaus when to stop running up and down the stairs, drawing on the walls, and setting things on fire. It seemed to have been Klaus that suffered the most after Ben was gone, and he had been the first to leave.

Five read as Vanya recounted how she had watched as every single one of their siblings torn up and discarded by their father, and by the very powers that made them special. Luther - ever loyal, still taking orders from his father. Diego - desperate to relive his time at the academy, now as number one, the hero. Allison - manipulating her way into the public spotlight and living a life of lies. Klaus - driven to addiction and squalor just to keep the terrors at bay. And Ben... well, their father had always pushed them too hard. He’d forced Five to teleport in quick succession, over increasing distances - until he could barely breathe, until his face was pale and cold with sweat and he passed out on the carpet. He’d lock Klaus in the mausoleum for hours on end - where the most twisted and terrifying spirits lurked, desperate to use him, until the boy was screaming and clawing at his eyes and ears. He always had Luther and Diego at each others throats, whispering praise or criticism into the ears of one or the other - never good enough, never strong enough. And Allison, he told her that her power was a gift - an advantage over the world to be used in self service - and look at what she’d become. And, of course, Vanya. Without Five there to remind her of the truth, she’d spent her teenage years locked away in that house, a shameful secret, the greatest disappointment of them all. Their power - or lack thereof - may have been what destroyed them in essence, but it was their father that was the catalyst. He was the one who always insisted that they were special, that their power was who they were, it was everything, and straying from their destiny, wanting more, was simply a failure to be strong.

And thats why, when he found a newspaper dated just over a week before the end of the world, he was delighted. Their father had died, and his siblings had enjoyed eight glorious days with that horrible burden lifted.

He stowed the book and the magazine into the wagon he’d been trailing behind him these past few days – stocked up with whatever supplies he could scrounge up from the ruins. That, and a mannequin he’d found that hadn’t been melted or crushed into dust. It gave him a strange sort of relief to see a human face – even a painted one – that wasn’t lifeless and covered in blood. While the rest of them rotted to bones or charred to ash – this face would remain, smiling forever. So he’d take her with him, a reminder of all the company he’d lost.

By this time, the initial shock and misery of the situation had all but worn off – and he was formulating a plan. He would search the world for survivors, for some clue as to what killed the human race, and, as he went, learn as much as he could about his powers and how to manipulate them. His father’s journal would be a good place to start – but he had been unable to find it among the ruins. He remembered his father mentioning a more theoretical approach to manipulating his powers. When he was young, Reginald would give him sets of coordinates as a marker when traversing long distances – only trouble was – they had been three-dimensional directions – now he was working with four. He wished he had his old maths and physics textbooks from the academy – but the ruins of the world’s libraries would have to do. He’d always fancied himself a bit of a genius – much to his sibling’s annoyance. This was to be his greatest challenge yet.

Wagon in hand, brushing the dust and ash from his blazer – he set down the cracked, rubble-littered road, off towards whatever future he could make for himself, and, if all went well, back to Vanya.


	5. Chapter 5

_14965 days after_

It was his fourth job. Belgium. Three days. A simple locate and destroy. It was early days for him in the commission – very early. So early, that they were yet to understand what he was capable of, and tended to underestimate his abilities. Hence, he had been allocated three days for a job that took him under two hours by a miraculous partnership of happenstance and skill. And so, he had three days. Three days to walk unabided in a world that was still breathing. There was only one place that beckoned – the one place that he’d spent all his childhood dreaming of escaping. It occurred to him that he could walk right through the front doors of the academy, now or three years earlier, at the very moment he disappeared. Even if such an action wouldn’t send the commission into a murderous frenzy, pinning all their best agents on his tail, he still wouldn’t do it. The thought of Vanya searching his old face for traces of the friend she’d lost was unbearable. Most of all, he couldn’t face his father. He couldn’t face being treated like some disobedient child that had finally, finally learnt his lesson. There was no life for him back at the academy. The only thing that worried him now was preventing the apocalypse, timeline be damned. He didn’t much care for the world that would live on afterwards – it wasn’t a place meant for him. His place was the ruins, the fire and the blizzard before the trees that grew over the rusted ruins of mankind. That was where he belonged, no matter how hard he had tried to escape it. He missed Delores. He missed solitude and hopelessness and the freedom that was complete existential damnation. So he went to Griddy’s, as he used to, when the world seemed too much.

…

_1095 days after_

Three years. There was finality in a milestone like that. Three years, and she wasn’t a kid anymore. Three years, and it was becoming difficult to hang onto false hope. The other’s had all accepted it far sooner. Five had been too self-righteous, too self-absorbed. He’d been disobedient, and his power had consumed him, one way or the other. Her siblings threw around other ideas; that Five was living it up somewhere far away, that he’d finally gotten tired of the old man’s bullshit and left. As selfish as it was, Vanya found the latter a much heavier burden to bear. The Hargreeves children were sixteen now, and no longer children, at least by their own standards. Luther was loyal and insufferable as ever, Diego as bitter and impulsive, Allison was a teenage sweetheart and grade-A bitch, and Klaus was losing himself to a wide range of drugs and narcotics, despite Ben’s best attempts to stop him. Ben was perhaps the most restless of all, how many bodies had he racked up over the years? Certainly far more than the rest of them combined, and it haunted him. Those things he harboured were eating him up from the inside, and he seemed more distant and melancholic than he’d been even as that quiet, bookish kid. Though their father urged them onwards, the team was already showing signs of falling apart. Allison was often away in bigger, more glamorous cities, Klaus was essentially powerless, and even Diego had stopped pining over his place as number one and had instead started getting into the odd scrap on the streets and staying out far too late. Reginald only grew bitter as the rest of them fell apart, and Vanya couldn’t help but smile along as their great and powerful fantasy crumbled to the ground.

She’d managed to master the art of sneaking out over the past few years, and now she was so quick, so quiet, that Five might as well have been there, teleporting the two of them directly outside the window. Security was also far more lax nowadays, as Reginald spent most of his time pent up in his office and leaving them to their own devices, having accepted their noncompliance. He’d even stopped using the security cameras. It had taken her a while to muster the courage to sneak out on her own after Five disappeared. She got the money from Klaus, who always had some hiding somewhere that he’d stolen off dad or one of the others. He’d been too high to notice her taking it. She didn’t go as often as she and Five used to, it just wasn’t as fun, wandering the streets by yourself and living inside your own head. Tonight, her head was a particularly insufferable place to be – it was ablaze with a single, excruciating fact. He’s never coming back. So she went to Griddy’s, as she did, when the world seemed too much.

…

He looked up from his notes when the door opened, the shrill chime indicating a new customer. He went on writing feverishly, he was so close to a breakthrough.

“Hey there, kid,” the waitress called – the same waitress, he realised, though she seemed a lot friendlier now. “the usual?”

“No thanks.” And of course she picked tonight to sneak away from the academy. It had been so much easier to ignore when he’d just been passing through, so much easier to forget what it had been like to live as a person among others, among friends. Vanya Hargreeves sat herself down a few stools away, dark fringe a little longer, and swept to the side. Her voice was a little deeper, and she seemed to have hit that stage of puberty where her limbs were too long for the rest of her, and her elbows stuck out at odd angles as they rested on the counter. Sixteen. It had only been three years for her, and yet she had changed so much. “I don’t know whether I could do a jelly-donut tonight, I’ll just take a coffee.”

“Coffee?” the waitress repeated, disapproving, “isn’t it a bit late for that.”

Vanya chuckled to herself, and he couldn’t stop staring. “It’s okay, I’m not exactly planning on sleeping tonight.”

“Well,” the waitress indicated towards Five, sitting at the far end of the bar, “it seems that’s a trend tonight.” She grinned and turned to busy herself with the machine. Vanya’s eyes only flicked to him briefly as the waitress mentioned him, but there was no recognition, why would there be? He was just some sad old man alone in the city. Vanya wrung her hands and laced her fingers absent-mindedly – he didn’t remember her being so restless.

The waitress set a steaming mug of coffee down in front of her. “So, what’s the occasion? I don’t see you in here much anymore.” Vanya clasped her hands around the mug and bent her face towards the steam emanating from the top, warming herself.

“I don’t know,” she sighed, “I guess I was just feeling a little nostalgic.” Five barley managed to suppress a snort. She sounded almost as old as him.  
She sat in silence for a moment, sipping tentatively at her drink, until suddenly, it all must have been too much to bear alone. “Do you remember that boy, the one I used to come here with years ago?”

The waitress chuckled. “Of course I remember, the two of you here in here almost every week, laughing and having a right old time – it made things interesting for me on this lousy shift.”

Vanya smiled sadly, “yeah,” she muttered. “Well it’s been three years now, since he disappeared. I don’t think he’s ever coming back.” Her words stung, and he wished he could tell her that he was here, that he’d tried to come back, had never for a second in forty years stopped trying.

The waitress didn’t seem to know what to say. “I’m sorry, kid. I almost forgot, you’re in that umbrella club, right? They tried to keep it all hush-hush when one of the boys stopped showing up on the TV.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not in on the whole club thing, but he was. He hated it.” She took another sip of coffee. Her hands were starting to shake. “You know," she sighed, unsure of whether or not to continue, “I think he ran away and left me.” The waitress drew her lips into a hard line, clearly unsure of how to proceed. “I’m sorry for bringing that up,” Vanya said, hastily, “I just, I can’t be alone in that house, not tonight. I just needed to tell someone who wouldn’t say I was stupid for still caring.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, “you come by whenever you need to.”

Vanya pressed her lips together in a hardened attempt to smile. “Thanks.” She was trembling, and not just from the coffee. He watched her reach a quivering hand into her pocket – a black overcoat instead of the old blazers they used to wear – and retrieved a zip-lock bag full of those orange and white capsules she’d taken for as long as Five could remember. She gulped one down with a sip of coffee and seemed to calm down almost immediately. She sighed, shaking out the last of those anxious jitters.

The next few minutes were some of the most tense and difficult of his life. There was an overwhelming urge to say something, to reveal himself, but he knew that doing so would only make things worse. Not only would commission lackeys be sent after him to covertly snuff him out once he was out of the way – but it would make things so much worse for Vanya. She’d be happy and heartbroken all at the same time – they’d been meant to grow up together. She’d want him to stay, but he couldn’t – and not just because of the commission – because of the others, because of his father. He couldn’t help but feel like every passing second was time wasted, the person he’d been fighting to get back to all this time was as unreachable as ever, and it broke him.

After a while, he couldn’t stand to be there any longer, and he couldn’t concentrate on his equations with all the tumultuous thoughts racing through his mind. All those years spent alone, he thought it had numbed him, made him better, stronger, emotionless. Turns out, he’d only learned to block it out, he’d only pushed all of those feelings away under his purpose of preventing the apocalypse. Now, all of those feelings that had been stewing away inside for decades finally bubbled to the surface, all the things that he’d hidden away because they’d been too painful to consider.

He stowed away his notebook – he’d plastered paper over the original cover, considering that Vanya hadn’t yet written the autobiography that he was holding – and picked up his briefcase. He gave the waitress a curt nod as he left the shop, and the shrill chiming of the door as he opened it caused Vanya to look up from her coffee. They met eyes for a moment – an awkward encounter with a total stranger, and the painful reunion of two friends, all at once. He straightened his suit jacket and stepped off into the night, trying not to think abut all the hours he spent racing along here as a child, showing off. He thought that coming back to his home city might bring him some comfort, reaffirm his goal to save his family – but all it did was remind him just how much he’d changed, just how much the world he had known didn’t recognise what he’d become. All it did was remind him that he didn’t belong anywhere but amongst the ashes he’d spent his life trying to escape.


	6. Chapter 6

_28 days before_

 

“Five, what’s wrong?” He seemed moody, even more than usual. He was huddled over the book he was reading, hunchbacked and staring down the page with an unnatural intensity. He wasn’t even reading it, just staring at the same block of text until his eyes grew raw and watery. He pulled out a notebook and pen and began scribbling feverishly onto the page, pressing so hard against the paper that she was sure it would break. 

 

She’d stopped playing her violin to question him, but he didn’t seem to notice that the music had stopped. She’d only had the instrument for about a year and a half now, but already she loved it more than anything. She'd been playing here in the library alone since early that morning, whilst the other’s had trained. Five had stomped in looking distraught, and sat himself down with one of those dense theoretical physics books he somehow found solace in reading.

 

He slammed the book shut abruptly, snapping up to look at her with wild eyes. “I can’t believe him!” He snapped. It wasn’t hard to guess that he was talking about their father. 

 

“What has he done now?” she sighed, sympathetic. 

 

“He still won’t let me time travel,” he threw his hands up, exasperated. “I’ve been practising my spatial jumps like crazy – you know I did five of them in seven seconds and I didn’t even pass out! I thought he’d be proud or _something_ , after all those times I’d faint after two or three in row, but no, nothing.” He paused for a moment, but started rattling off again before Vanya could get a calming word in. Sometimes it was best to just let him vent. “I mean, I don’t know what I expected, even when we do what the old bastard says it’s never enough. He doesn’t think I’m strong enough, he thinks I’m just some stupid kid like the rest.”

 

Vanya let him stew for a moment before speaking up, cautious. She wasn’t sure that she wanted him to try something that was apparently so dangerous. Their father was always forcing the others to push the limits of their powers – but he was quite firm on the subject; time travel was a step too far. It was uncharacteristic, for sure, but perhaps only because it was an ability that Reginald couldn’t control, that couldn’t serve the purpose of the academy. She began slowly, “Well, he says it’s dangerous, what if you got hurt or lost or–“

 

He interrupted her. “I’m not scared, Vanya,” he scoffed, “and I know what I’m doing.”

 

She sighed, setting down her violin and sitting down on the couch beside him. ”I know you do, Five.”

 

“Sorry,” he said, a moment later, calmer now. “It’s just that, I put so much effort into showing him I could be what he wanted, that I could be an important part of the academy, but now he tells me I can’t even explore the full range of my power. All that talk about our ‘gifts’ and our obligation to reach our full potential – it’s all just inspiring bullshit to get us to do what he says, isn’t it?”

 

“That’s his game, he makes all of us care so much about making him proud, but I don’t think he really loves any of us –“ she paused before adding, with a smirk, “maybe Luther, a little bit.”

 

Five rolled his eyes, “Oh god, he pisses me off so much.” She smiled back, and they sat together quietly for a time before he spoke again. His tone was purposeful, almost whimsical. When he looked up at the warm light of the chandelier overhead, he was staring out into a place she couldn’t see, his mind, his master plan. “We could escape, you know, and not just out of the city, we could go to a different time, somewhere that dad could never find us.”

 

“You really think so?” She was willing to play his game, it was fun to fantasise about such things, even if she considered it all too good to be true. Hopes were best kept low, She’d learnt as much in her short life already. ”Where could we go?”

 

Anywhere,” he said, throwing his arms out wide, as if to indicate that the world was their’s for he taking “Or, anywhen,” he winked. She giggled at the smug look on his face, as if he’d just made the cleverest of jokes. Suddenly he was all seriousness again, brows arched in concentration. “I think we should go to the future, wouldn’t that be incredible?” It was hard to wrap her head around, moving through time, but she trusted him. “We should wait though, until we’re a little older and until I’ve practised time travelling enough that I’ll get it right.” Vanya watched him, he was going through the process in his mind, weighing their options, building the scenario in his head. “Just think about it Vanya!” He leant forwards and placed an over-enthusiastic hand on her shoulder. “Dad would never find us, and there’d be all sort of cool stuff there - like robots, even smarter than mom, and teleporters and spaceships that can go anywhere in the whole universe!” 

 

It sounded so wonderful, she found it harder than ever to rule out the possibility. “You’d really take me with you?” She asked. Even after all these years, it was hard to imagine why he would. He gave her a sad smile and sat down beside her again, taking her hand in his and giving it an encouraging squeeze. 

 

“Of course I will Vanya,” he said, searching for her eyes beneath her fringe. “Once I learn how, and I get lots of practise, it’ll be no trouble at all. We can take a suitcase and your violin, and we’ll never have to come back here again.” 

 

“That’s sounds,” she grinned, “extraordinary.” He returned the gesture, and the secret plan sat unspoken between them throughout most of the coming weeks, save those precious moments they spent alone here in the library or hidden away in the old, forgotten places that the other’s barely visited. It was a safety net, a promise kept that, if things got bad, they would have each other, they would have an a way out. 

 

He opened his notebook again and began writing. His calm, light scrawling struck a contrast against the dark jagged symbols from earlier, as if he’d been trying to take his anger out on the very page. More sums, he never seemed to tire of them. He was still flustered, though, and he’d made a mistake.

 

She pointed to the bottommost line, reminding him, “remember to carry the four.”

 

…

 

_14235 days after_

 

_Remember to carry the four._

 

“Honestly, you think I’d forget something like that?”

 

_Well you did, just yesterday, and it took you hours to figure out what you’d done wrong._

 

“Yes, alright but I’m paying attention this time.”

 

_You mean you’re not pass-out drunk this time._

 

Five rolled his eyes, she was always on his case about the drinking. There weren’t any other depressants laying around forty years into the end of the world. It was numbing, sometimes it even created an illusion of contentedness. “Hey, now that’s not fair, it was my fortieth anniversary of being stuck here with you, I was celebrating an occasion of utter hopelessness.”

 

_You love me_ , she chided.

 

“Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not sick of eating four-decade-old tinned beans does it?”

 

_I thought you’d given up on going back to your family._

 

“Of course I have, there’s nothing left for me there. I still have a world to save - if I can, or at the very least, I want to see for myself what did this, and why my powers are useless here.” He sighed, stepping back from the wall at the chalk scratches he hoped would unlock the secrets of time and space. He’d spent the morning reinforcing the canvas shelter overhead. You could never be too careful, especially after that time it rained suddenly a few ears ago, and washed away half his work. “How many times have I told you this, Delores?”

 

_Far too many. Sometimes you need to remind yourself what you’re fighting for._ Of course she was right, it was rare that she wasn’t. He was the one who needed reminding of the world he’d lost. He was the one that needed to keep motivated enough not to drink himself into a hole and forget about it all. It was Delores that stopped him from doing just that, almost every day. She was always smiling, so positive and hopeful despite the crushingly poor odds. They’d overcome everything the end could throw at them so far. He couldn’t give up now. 

 

Some decades earlier, he’d stopped searching for survivors. Everywhere he went, he saw more of the same: ashes, ruin, and corpses in various states of decay. He wasn’t about to try and cross the seas, he’d only get himself killed. He remembered huddling under piles of fallen stone, or holing up in an underground bunker that hadn’t completely caved in, just to hide from the blizzards that raged for years on end. The winter was long, but the fire was worse, and surviving the radiation it brought had been a miracle in of itself, though he wasn’t optimistic about his life expectancy. He remembered reading somewhere about what happened to the world after a nuclear strike, or a high-impact meteor. He’d found it fascinating to consider the hypothetical; what an interesting feat of science, of nature. Living it was something else entirely. 

 

First ash, then ice, fire, and now, the world was finally starting to look that way that it used to. Plants had begun to grow again, sprouts of green between the gravelled roads, roots snaking up through rusted metal, leaves splayed out towards the sun, fighting through crumbling stone. It was beautiful, in a way, that life in some form kept on struggling. The weather was becoming more and more stable, the sun beating down pleasantly on his back, and the dark, moonless nights were no longer frigid, bone-chilling affairs. With a fire going, they were pleasant too. If he found a bed of newly-blossomed flowers, struggling to life in this unforgiving wasteland, he thought that it might be a pleasant place to die too. He tried not to think about that, not yet anyway. 

 

_Not today, and keep telling it to yourself everyday until you’ve finished the job, or until the job is finished with you._

 

“I know,” he muttered in reluctant agreement. He realised he’d been slacking, losing himself in his thoughts again. He lifted the chalk back up to the wall and tried to grasp at loose strings of thought. When he was concentrating on his equations, the one great problem of his life, he could block out the rest of it. There was no room to think about anything else. “I’m so close, I can feel it.” How many times had he said that? When had he run out of creative ways to lie to himself? 

 

_I know you are. You can do this, you can stop it. This is what the academy was meant for._

 

That sentiment had made so much sense when he was a child, when he’d been riding on promises from his father that they’d save the world. Of course, nothing about him made sense anymore – I mean, just look at Delores… When everyone else was gone, and your own head was the only place left, sense didn’t count for anything, you made your own. 

 

This goal was all he had, because all this time – his whole life – it couldn’t all be for nothing. He wouldn’t let it be for nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it's been a while huh... I kinda had all the umbrella academy energy drained out of me after writing that 40k word Dark Klaus fic that ended up causing me a bit of stress, but I had a sudden burst of inspiration to write again and I love these kids sooooo (this part has actually been written for months now but yay I'm finally posting it)


	7. Chapter 7

_1471 days after (and 8 days before he dies)_

 

“Are you okay?” She asked. They were sitting in the front room, side by side. Both of them had come in with the intent of doing something productive, and yet they both sat transfixed by his portrait on the wall. The way he looked down at them all with that smug little grin on his face, the way he used to look whenever he said something clever that left the rest of them speechless. 

 

“Yeah, sure.” Ben shrugged. He wasn’t. Things had only been getting worse for him lately. The dreams; his body, covered in blood, ribs snapping out as something pushed its way out from the inside. He felt nauseous, bogged down by an edge of darkness that he couldn’t explain. The expanse that he held inside him had terrified him all his life, had even terrified their father, but every morning he lied about the ghostly aching of his ribs, the smell of blood that he could never quite shake from his nostrils. They didn’t need to know, didn’t need to worry about nothing, least of all Vanya, who already worried so much. That’s why he lied. That’s why he kept on lying right up until the end. 

 

“I hate this painting,” she mumbled. She tried not to look at it if she could avoid it, but it was hard. Their father had pinned it up above the mantel in the main foyer of the house. The boy in the painting watched them all with those cold eyes, but it wasn’t Five’s gaze that she felt piercing the back of her head as she walked by, it was her father’s. They both knew what it meant when their father had hung the portrait, almost a year after Five had disappeared. Despite the insincere grin their father had pushed through his too-tight scowl – they knew what the painting really was. It was no homage to the “son” he’d lost – it was a warning. _This is what will happen to you if you fall out of line. You will disappear. You are nothing without me, my guidance. Your power will destroy you, unless you obey. Obey._

 

“I know,” Ben nodded, “I hate it too.” Neither of them had much to say anymore. The academy was all but unravelled already, one more tug and it would all some apart. The two had grown closer over the years since Five had disappeared, while the rest of them simply grew apart. She wasn’t as close with Ben as she’d been with Five, but he was kind, he was quiet, he listened. She knew how scared he was of himself, the shame and disgust he felt everyday with the things that he’d done, that their father had made him do. Now more than ever, their father barely came downstairs. There was still the occasional mission, but more often than not there wouldn’t be a full team on the response, and even when there was, they were reluctant, and those who weren’t scared of the increasing danger of their exploits were simply hesitant to obey their father and go on maintaining this childish facade of crime-fighting superheroes. But, it was all they had, and most couldn’t imagine a life beyond it. That wasn’t to say they hadn’t thought about it. Reginald had already tried to shove Vanya out of the picture, handing over a scholarship to some fancy music college on the other side of the country. 

 

The future was never something that none of the academy elite had thought they would have to consider, but as time wore on, it became apparent to all of them that they couldn’t imagine living in this place into their adult lives, the prison of their childhoods. Everyone except Luther, who was as excited as ever to play the hero, and was frustrated at their lack of enthusiasm, had never understood their trepidation towards their duty, or their father. 

 

“So, have you thought about that scholarship?” Ben ventured. It was as good a thing to discuss as anything – and certainly better than discussing Five. 

 

“Well yeah, I’ve _thought_ about it,” she shrugged, “but I don’t know, even after spending so much time dreaming of leaving this house I can’t imagine it, just going for good, being by myself and just out there in the world…” She didn’t feel prepared, but I suppose no one ever did. “What about you,” she replied, hasty to turn the question back on him. He chuckled a little, it seemed like such a strange prospect to consider. 

 

“Well, it’s not like any of us have high school diplomas so I guess I’ll start with a bridging course or something at community college. You probably know what I want to study.”

 

“Books?” She grinned, giving him a playful nudge.

 

“I believe they call it, English Literature,” he put on a pompous voice. The way he arched his eyebrow and drew his mouth into a scowl, it was obvious that he was imitating their father. 

 

“When do you think you’ll go?”

 

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “maybe a year, once we’re eighteen and properly adults.” She mimed retching, which made him chuckle some more. “I know, it’s weird, right?” She followed his gaze as it wandered up to the first landing. The others were up there somewhere; Klaus was probably high off his ass, Diego sleeping off last night’s scrap, Allison planning her next photoshoot or media deal, Luther training and telling himself that it was all worth it. “I don’t think I can leave them, not yet anyway, and especially not Klaus,” there was no way he was getting out of that spiral alone, and Ben was one of the few that cared enough to try. “We need each other,” he smiled sadly. 

 

There was a twist of jealously in her gut, not as strong as she’d felt it as a young child, but lingering all the same. She wondered if that feeling would ever go away. “Must be nice.” 

 

“I’m sorry we were always so horrible to you Vanya, you know, when we were little, and…” _and after Five left._ He would have said, but he knew it was best not to mention him. 

 

“It’s okay, I’m sorry I was such an annoying little crybaby.” 

 

He gave her a pointed look, to which she sighed, she knew where he was going. “I don’t need to tell you that isn’t true, you already know.” He looked back up at the painting, at Five. She could see tears in his eyes. The way they caught the light overhead, it made them shine white and lifeless, like dead fish eyes. There was something wrong, she knew, and his shoulders were shaking as if he was in pain. If she asked, she knew he would just smile on through, insist that everything was okay. “We all had our own shit going on, all the little ways Dad broke us. It was hard to look out for anyone but yourself, Five knew that, but he did it anyway.”

 

“Yeah,” she murmured. She didn’t think that Ben, let alone any of the others, had ever betrayed any sort of regret for the way they used to treat her. She wondered what could have brought this on. 

 

She looked up into the eyes of the boy in the painting – cold, pale eyes – still trying to imagine his, the way they smiled at her and glinted with energy, with life. She still counted the days. Would she stop once she left the academy? Would she ever be able to forget him – and would she ever forgive herself if she did? “Do you think he’s still out there somewhere?”

 

He look at her with eyes full of sympathy. “I don’t know, but wherever he is, or whenever, I supposed,” he shrugged, “we can’t get to him, and he certainly can’t get to us.”

  
“How can you be so sure?”

 

“Because I know him, and you do too. We both know that he’d never leave you on purpose.” 

 

“Oh Ben,” she smiled, just a hint of sadness – always a hint of it, behind even the smallest gesture. "I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

 

…

 

“Oh Five,” she smirked, Cheshire grin spreading across her face – too wide. “What would you do without me.” 

 

He found it difficult to meet her gaze, the too-intense eyes a-glint with malice. Silver stare and silver hair, all wrapped in black and _always_ teasing. “I don’t know,” he shrugged “I suppose I’d be,” he returned the smirk as genuinely as he could, keeping up appearances, “nothing.” 

 

“Squabbling around in the ruins like a madman,” she reached out and cupped his face in her hand, grip uncomfortably tight, “all that talent,” she hissed, “wasting away out there.” She smiled again and gave his cheek a pat as she drew her arm away. 

 

Berlin, 1924. They blended right in with his grey suit and her tight black dress. She fished a cigarette out of a lacquered tin in her purse. “Be a dear and fetch me a light, will you?” He fished into his own pockets, they’d been a jarring change after the layers of rags and leather he’d worn in the apocalypse. He tried to be thankful of the little things; silken pockets and fresh pants, when the blood came off your hands after the first rinse. The little things. 

 

He pulled out a lighter, one he’d used to set a house alight a few weeks earlier in the 1970s. The Handler tipped her fascinator as if to thank him and leant in close, too close. He held her gaze, even if he felt like it would burn right through him. He lit the end of the cigarette, to which she winked, drawing away and breathing deeply. He stood in silence for a moment, wondering why she’d bothered to come out here and see him. She ran the whole operation; the whole conspiracy of an organisation operating between the fabric of space and time. He was, supposedly, just another temporal agent, yet she seemed to concern herself with him a great deal. At first he thought she liked him, what with the way she was always flirting to a point of ridiculousness, but he’d quickly come to learn that she didn’t have the capacity, or ironically, the time, for such things. 

 

She let the smoke out of her mouth slowly, letting it waft out and join the clout of industrial smog beginning to form over the streets of the city. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” she said, looking out at the crowds bustling past with her chin turned up, that superiority, the knowing that she held them all in the palm of her hand. “You’re out best agent, Number Five, and, might I add, though I’m not strictly supposed to say this,” she muttered, mocking a secretive whisper, “my personal favourite.” He betrayed only the smallest of smiles, out of courtesy. “I’m serious,” she took his unenthusiasm for disbelief, “you’ve been with us, what, three years now, and you’ve got the highest kill count on record, and, let’s not forget, the most efficient and elegant methods.” 

 

“You flatter me,” he grinned, still subdued, still wary. What did she want? 

 

“I’m glad, Number Five, because I want you to know how invaluable you are to me,” her lack of sincerity was transparent. “And I want you to know how disappointed I would be to have to terminate your contract,” that smile spread across her face again, sharp as a knife and threatening to cut right through her cheeks. “I know about your little excursion, to the academy. All this time and you still can’t let go,” she tutted playfully, “I’m disappointed.”

 

“I retain a certain… curiosity, about how it happened,” he offered, choosing his words carefully. For all he knew half the surrounding crowd were more of his fellow agents, guns concealed, all of them lightning quick and unwavering, unquestioning. That’s what the Handler did, plucked beings out of time, broken people completely devoid of hope, ruthless, capable, cast out, ready to do anything for the prospect of a better life, or just for the fun of it. That was her mistake; because even forty years alone at the end of the world hadn’t been enough to break him, not completely. “I lived forty years trying to figure out exactly how the apocalypse started, it’s not something that’s particularly easy to let go of, I’m sure you understand.” March 23rd 2019, he’d used the briefcase – which was a mistake since the commission kept tabs on them – he’d been aiming for April 1st but the cases were only ever meant to be operated remotely from headquarters so it was a miracle he’d managed to calibrate it outside their protocols at all. He’d been too early, though, and it had all culminated in a fruitless venture. The funeral would have happened the day after, if he’d just been a few hours later he might have caught a glimpse of them, mere days away from becoming those cold, ashen corpses buried under ruin. If he had just been able to catch a glimpse of what he would have to face, the person with the glass eye that would end the world… And Vanya, he hadn’t seen her since the diner. Sometimes, he even tried to force himself to forget that she existed, but then he’d pull out her book, reading between lines of pencil scribblings, trying to imagine the words in her voice, everything she’d suffered since he left her. _Sometimes I still think about him - whether he’s dead or lost or living the dream._

 

Just a little longer and he would have the information he needed, just a little longer and he could escape, unlock his powers, and save them all. “Five years of service,” is what she’d said, but as time went on, he suspected that it had been a false promise. “Five years and we’ll have scraped away every part of your humanity until the part that used to care is dead. We’ll make you a killer, a weapon, and you’ll work for us until you die.” That would have been closer to the truth. 

 

She considered him for a moment, because she’d meant his family, and he knew it. Pretend the thought didn’t even cross your mind, let her believe you don’t care anymore. “I admire your… persistence,” she smiled, neither of them quite believing what the other was saying, “but please, stick to protocol. I’ll make a special allowance,” she placed a finger squarely in the middle of his chest, leaning in to whisper, “just this once.” 

 

“How very generous of you,” he didn’t back away. Give her what she wants, make her think she has you wrapped around her finger. 

 

She hung her hands around the back of his neck, and he wasn’t quite sure if she was trying to choke him or kiss him. “But you do see that this is better, don’t you Five?” She smiled, “You’ll live forever, all of time at your fingertips, anywhere, or anywhen,” again she flashed her signature smirk, and she reminded him of someone else, someone he’d been a long time ago. Hadn’t this been what he’d always wanted, an escape? Well, this was as good as it got. It would be so easy to shut off, to simply go through the motions. The killing was an art in of itself, he finally had something to take pride in, something he was good at. This is what his father had trained him to be; a killer, ruthless, determined, an instrument. “You’re good at what you do, and I’ve given you a chance to leave the past in the past. You don’t need to worry about the apocalypse anymore, and this obligation to your family –“

 

“What family?” he grinned, feigning confusion and leaning in closer, “I was an orphan bought by an egomaniac and raised in a house of strangers. There’s nothing for me there, and there never was.” 

 

“I’m glad you’ve come around. Here, you finally have a place where you truly belong, where you can shine.” She leant in and kissed him. Short, but passionate. He couldn’t help but reciprocate, and he almost convinced himself that it was all part of the act. Maybe she was right – perhaps his dream of preventing the apocalypse had been a foolish boy’s fantasy. Every time he felt thoughts like these creeping in, as he waited on a rooftop staring into a scope, or watched another corpse fall at his feet, and he thought it might be easier to just let go, he thought of her, of all of them. _To this day I wonder if he really got lost in time, or if he simply ran away without me._ No, I never would. I would never leave you, Vanya. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time catches up with them. They're reunited, but it's not the same. It won't ever be the same.

_5976 days for her, 16316 days for him_

 

There was a flurry of blue light in the sky, jagged swirls warping the air and making the wind roar with cold. Sounds wafted past her, sounds that shouldn’t have been there; a radio crackling static, car engines, cheering voices. She caught a glimpse of a face pressing through the portal, a flash of fear in familiar eyes, old, withered hands outstretched, changing. She remembered this feeling, the energy that she felt coursing through the air around her now was the same thing she had felt as she passed the wall between her bedroom and the streets outside, clasping Five’s hand for fear of slipping away. The light flourished into a blinding flash and dissipated. Night turned back into day, and the ground beneath her steadied once again. A figure was crumpled on the floor, small, struggling to stand in a comically oversized suit. And he was there, he was there, _he was there_. Five.

 

Typical. She’d spent so long trying to forget this place, and as soon as she was back she found herself staring up at that painting, trying to remember what his face really looked like, not the version Dad had hung up as an omen over their heads. And now, now it was so much worse, because she had finally, _finally,_ accepted that he was gone, and here he was. As if nothing had changed. 

 

There was a look that passed between them, or at least she thought there was. He looked with sadness, and longing, and sorrow, and her with shock, a deep and twisting anxiety buried so deep she’d forgotten it was there, finally resolved like the final note of an octave. 

 

It only lasted for a moment before he barged past her, leaving all five of his siblings baffled and grasping for words to explain what they’d just seen. Their brother, as he’d been, as he’d always stayed in their minds, but different. None of them could quite explain why, but Vanya recognised that cold look in his eye. It reminded her of the painting. It reminded her of her father. It made her wonder whether the joyful kid she’d known had ever been there to begin with, and what had happened to him to scrub it all away. There’d been an old man in the portal, just for a moment, but everything was so bright, so strange, they couldn’t be sure. 

 

But he said he was fifty eight. He made himself a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich and Vanya wondered how many of them had spoiled when she used to leave them out for him at night. He said he’d gotten stuck in the future, and explained it all like they were first graders with drool dripping down their chins. She liked the way it made the others squirm, just like they used to. _Nice to see nothing’s changed_. 

 

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

 

“What else is there to say, circle of life.”

 

_Say you tried to come back. Say you remember me. Say that this tore you up inside as much as it did for me. Please, just look at me._

 

_…_

 

He found her standing beneath the painting of the boy in the main hall after he returned from upstairs, clothed in his dreadful old uniform. His body felt strange to say the least, and every step left him feeling dizzy and sick. The uniform didn’t help, it was like looking down and suddenly being cast back fifty years, living in a memory. He had more energy now, which was a good thing, but his body felt thin and weak in size alone. He often thought about how much easier the job would be if he was young again, but this was too young, and he’d really liked that suit. 

 

He hated the way they looked at him. He’d only been back a few minutes and already he knew it was going to be insufferable. They might be more inclined to trust him though, looking as he did, just like the brother they’d lost. He didn’t have to waste his time convincing them he was really who he said he was, which he’d been worried about. The issue now was getting them to take him seriously, and stop thinking of him as their kid brother who’s powers had driven him crazy. 

 

…

 

When she sees him approaching, she feels as if she’s living in a memory. So their father had kept the uniforms all these years, of course he had, he’d been grieving his perfect vision of the umbrella academy ever since things had started going wrong – since Five, and before that, even, when he realised that children weren’t as obedient or quiet as ordinary weapons. 

 

The portrait looms over her, and she wonders if Five hates it as much as she does. It’s difficult to discern any one emotion on his face. When they were kids, she could read him like a book, every emotion out on display. His anger pulled his shoulders forwards and his back over, pushed his brows in and lips down and made his eyes go small and dark. Everything was animated, even his glee, when he skipped along the sidewalk to Griddy’s at night, grin bared against the chilled night. The smiles he’d send her way when she didn’t have the strength to do it for herself, obnoxiously wide. The way he’d cross his arms and arch his eyebrows, turning his chin up at all of them when he knew he was right about something. Suddenly she found herself remembering a thousand little things about him that she hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on in years. None of that was here now. Whatever version of Five stood before her now was unfathomable in every sense of the word. He eyed her with cool concern, a glaze of disinterest, as if he was already growing bored, mind elsewhere. 

 

Had he really been gone for forty-five years? In her thirteen years away from the academy, she’d tried to move away from their family’s particular brand of strangeness, tried to forget that while she may be ordinary, her childhood and the people she grew up around were anything but. The rest of the world had been quick to forget the academy and its supposed super-powered pupils. It was a fad, a hoax, some extravagant billionaire’s plot to reel the public in. There was footage, witnesses, the lot, but it was a whole lot easier to dismiss the things that challenged the laws of everyday life. It certainly didn’t help that the only siblings who remained didn’t have powers that were easy to prove were supernatural at all. She knew better, of course, but it was easy to convince herself that she didn’t. Now, here she was, witnessing all of the strangeness her family had to offer. She felt that guarded aversion to the supernatural crumbling down, because this wasn’t the brother she remembered, he was old and tired and immeasurably sad. 

 

…

 

_(They hate me_

 

_There are worse things that can happen_

 

_You mean like what happened to Ben?_

 

_Was it bad?)_

 

She nodded, averting her eyes. After he was... gone, she couldn’t bare to stick around. She took the scholarship, Klaus ran off to god knows where - because anywhere was better than here - Allison took that movie deal and moved away, Diego joined the police academy. Growing up happened fast after that, for all of them.

 

“Just so you know, Vanya,” he tried to sound casual but Vanya could tell his words were forced, rehearsed. How many times had he practised them? “I didn’t mean to run away. I would’ve come back for you if I... if I could.” 

 

“You’re here now, that’s all that matters.” But it wasn’t, because how different would her life have been if he’d come back to her on that lonely, sleepless night when she was thirteen and still brimming with the hope that she’d see him again?

 

He flashed her a sad smile, an imprint of his old self cutting through his cold, tired exterior. What he said, about being nearly sixty years old, she almost believed it when she looked at him now. Almost. 

 

She smiled back, a nervous thing that felt alien as it spread across her cheeks. It made her muscles tingle uncomfortably. She wasn’t used to smiling. 

 

…

 

After the shitstorm that was his latest trip to Griddy’s, he didn’t know where else to go. He thought he’d have more time, a day at least, not just a few hours. He’d been to her apartment before, back when it had been nothing but a pile of charred wood and crumbling stone – what it would become again in eight days. He’d looked up address in the phone book at the end of the world and searched the rubble for any sign of her. There had been corpses, blackened to a crisp or mutilated far beyond recognition. He hadn’t taken them as an answer, but in reality, she could have been any one of them. She could become any one of them again, if he failed. 

 

It would be just like when they were kids, he thought, when they would tell each other everything. What a childish notion, but that’s what he was now, a child. He’d found it to be advantageous back at the diner though, no one expected a kid to be able to slaughter a small army of hired guns, and if the commission was looking for a sixty-year-old, he might just be able to evade them for a while longer. So, there were upsides, but not nearly enough of them. He missed being able to move without the unfamiliarity of it making his skin crawl, skin that didn’t even feel like his own. 

 

He didn’t even need to teleport inside – the window was unlocked, which he’d be sure to lecture her about. He waited in the dark, trying to collect his thoughts. He’d waited like this for victims many times before, hiding in the dark before they arrived home. The light would flick on, and just as quickly there’d be a bullet in their head or a knife in their heart. He hoped those old instinct didn’t kick in tonight. 

 

…

 

He told her everything, well, almost everything. He left out his days working for the commission, his story was ludicrous enough as it was without adding in an agency of time-travelling assassins. He noticed the way she looked at him now; pity, disbelief. Of course. It had been too long, things had gotten too strange… Even Vanya didn’t believe him. The fact that he looked like a thirteen-year-old probably didn’t help. 

 

He wished he hand’t lost his temper. She’d gone back to her room, and he’d promised to stay and get some sleep. She was scared, he knew that, scared that he was going to take off and leave her again. He didn’t want her to worry, but he knew he couldn’t stay. Ever second felt like a pinprick in his skin, a hail of stones, tumbling down, washing over, going, going, gone. Every second wasted was a second he’d lose when it mattered most. This wasn’t the time to try to save some semblance of the friendship they’d had, he had a world to save, and she had a life to live. He’d never allowed himself to entertain the thought that he would have a life as well after all this. Starting over felt so wrong, so daunting… It didn’t matter right now. It would be the end for all of them if he couldn’t get his shit together, never mind Vanya, never mind the tightness in his chest and the deep, stewing frustration because, after all his time struggling, she didn’t believe him, and worse still, he wasn’t quite sure he believed himself. All those years spent alone had made it more and more difficult to discern fantasy from reality. The voices that he talked to in his head, the scenarios he played out, they all fleshed out and manifested in the world around him, _when sense didn’t count for anything, you made your own._ Being back here, in this body, it made it so easy to dismiss everything he’d been through in favour of a simpler story, the sort that Vanya latched on to now to explain away the inexplicable, and perhaps the unbearable, truth. He wished his mind were contaminated, like she thought, he wished that none of it was real, but it was. It had to be. 

 

The blood on his shirt was real, from the guy he stabbed in the eye with a pen. The ringing in his ears was real, from the gun shots and the broken glass that had rattled around the diner. The commission was real, because they were after him. The apocalypse was real, because he still had the glass eye tucked in his pocket, its serial number etched into his memory like a fact of his existence, his only lead. Everything he’d suffered through was real, but still Vanya was right, in a way. His mind _was_ contaminated. It was contaminated because he saw ashes falling like snow from the ceiling every time his vision blurred, because he still heard Delores’ voice in his head as if she were right beside him, and he couldn’t pass someone on the street without planning out every possible way he could kill them. Because his whole body itched like a phantom limb as his mind writhed in this new shell – and the moon in the sky still felt like a dream – and he still heard the fires and the blizzards and thought about the patch of blooming flowers where he’d lay down and die. 

 

He was contaminated because the years had broken him, but his siblings still had a chance. Vanya still had a chance. 

**Author's Note:**

> [](https://ibb.co/n6BTtMn)   
>    
>  [](https://imgbb.com/)   
> 


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